"Ya' don't say?"
Politico builds an entire story around this analysis:
Obama may have little choice but to accept House Speaker John Boehner’s offer because it delivers what the president wanted: a debt limit hike with no ideological strings attached.
Uh, guys, if House Republicans raise the debt limit with no strings attached, they aren't boxing President Obama into a corner. They're giving him what he's been asking for.
The question isn't whether President Obama would accept a clean debt limit increase—that's what he's been asking for all along. The question is whether the House will offer anything at all (they still haven't made a formal proposal) and if they do offer anything, whether it will actually be clean or if it will come with a poison pill like barring the Treasury Department from taking extraordinary measures to avoid default.
Oh, and there's also the question of whether the GOP will be able to pass whatever it is they propose—if they propose anything at all, that is.